1. In which dreams are shattered and old fears are awakened #2
Ernest. Two weeks ago he had taken her aside in The Ship’s Cat.
Had clasped her shoulder, his eyes bright, and told her how she reminded him of himself as a young man.
Such an honour from him, the most prestigious explorer of the century.
He had offered to mentor her, and to sponsor her upcoming expedition to Antarctica.
His words had changed everything. And the nights spent in his study going over her plans, her deepest desires coming to life before her very eyes as they talked excitedly of the Weddell Sea, of Vahsel Bay, of the first Trans-Antarctic crossing ever to be made.
Hester Orn, the hero of the Frozen South—no, heroine—planting the British flag, icy wind blowing back her hair, imaginary trumpets blaring her triumph.
The image shattered.
Ernest was dead.
There would be no more late-night whiskey drinking and poring over charts and maps in his study. No promise of a father figure, the only one she’d ever known.
No money.
No triumph.
Hester clutched her throat, sure it was about to cave in. She gripped the wall. In her chest, her magic reared and bucked, searching for a way out, a way to call forth a calamity to match the magnitude of having this opportunity snatched from her.
Her face paled. She could not let the magic out around Septimus. Not after what he’d just said about burning at the stake.
He reached for her, oblivious to the war inside her. “I know you had grown close. But perhaps it’s for the best. The South is dangerous. You have no idea—”
She clapped her hands over her ears, but couldn’t drown out the roaring of her magic, or his misogynistic words.
Oh God, she was going to explode. With a gasp, she lost control, the rope she had tied her magic with fraying asunder, burning away into nothing, power lashing out into the world, shooting out to summon the weather.
Septimus’s eyes widened as a shockwave throbbed through the air, and he raised his head to the ceiling as a torrent of rain pounded at the planks of the deck outside.
Hester scrambled away from him, cheeks hot, whole body hot with the magic, with the force of it.
She fled for the companionway, feet finding the steps through muscle memory, because her vision was clouded with fog.
Thunder boomed, shaking the particles of the air with its force.
The rain poured in sheets as she ran out of the belly of the ship and onto the deck.
Past the masts, all the way to the bow. She fell to her knees, gasping as the rain tried to stifle her sobs.
Lightning flashed, illuminating the harbour walls, the magic still racing out of her.
Ernest.
His guiding hand.
His money.
Hester Orn, heroine of the Frozen South.
Gone.
All gone.
Fear was a constant companion, but with her husband gone from the world, it wrapped its claws around Charlotte’s heart and squeezed.
She sat on the settee in the sitting room, the walls green as fresh curling leaves, though today the colour was dull.
The whole world was duller, in fact. She stared at the enormous oil painting of the Antarctic pack ice hanging over the fireplace, her hand resting on Marjorie’s head.
The malamute shuffled against her bare leg and gazed at her with too-wise eyes.
Charlotte fiddled with the lace at the edge of her dressing gown, toes curling in her slippers.
The black day dress that Alma had laid out that morning lay untouched on the bed upstairs.
Oh, if only she could step into the painting. Step into it and find Ernest there, dressed in his fur clothes, frost on his beard, his lined face laughing in the Antarctic sun. For she was sure that was where his spirit would gravitate. If she could find her friend anywhere, it would be there.
You are as stunning as the frozen continent, my dear.
Ice-blue eyes, glacial skin, hair as pale as the Antarctic sun.
His words echoed in her head. And oh, the unfairness of the world that he was forty years her senior.
If only he had been younger. If only they had fallen madly in love.
If only their marriage had not merely been a construct for her to hide behind.
Fresh tears lined her eyes. She thought she had used them all up, spent them since she’d found him yesterday, eyes closed in his favourite armchair, an old expedition journal open on his lap, whiskey glass dropped to the rug, a soft smile on his face.
Rain hammered against the tall window, a sudden squall darkening the sky, lightning flashing, reflected off the black surface of the grand piano that stood, unused for so long, by the windows.
Longing stole through her chest. To dance her hands across the keys. To become enshrouded in the music, to pour her heart and grief into the notes. Before she knew what she was doing, she was standing, feet taking her to the instrument.
Three years. Over three years since that night.
She had not lifted the lid from the beloved keys for three whole years.
But she found herself doing so now, found herself sliding onto the leather cushion of the seat, feet poised over the pedals, fingers hovering over the ebony and ivory.
Her heart raced, insides tying themselves in painful knots, tears still spilling, hitting the keys. Oh, to play. To play and forget.
But she couldn’t.
Couldn’t stifle the fear and the shame.
Ernest had spent their three years of marriage trying to coax her back into her music, her compositions, her songwriting. And yet after that fateful night, she simply couldn’t.
The walls closed in, the shadows in the corners of the room darkening. Her fingers shook but a hair’s breadth above the keys. Her friend, her saviour. Gone. How would she hide from the world now he had left her all alone?
Charlotte closed the lid, heaved a breath out and laid her forehead against the cool dark lacquer, a lover sighing a final farewell.